Complications
by tcganimefan
Summary: Kaserht, a being created by Xana, has decided to find out what realy is going on. Could this fall right into its' plans? massivly rewritten, please R&R.
1. Meet Kaserht

Jeremie Belpois sat hunched over a computer monitor in his dorm at Kadic Jr. High. His face was basked in the green glow of the screen, the only source of light in his room. He had not noticed the sun fall and the darkness grow as he worked continuously on his goal.

He would have worked all night, fallen asleep at two in the morning and woken up in time to be late for first period, if it had not been for the nock at the door. He mentally slapped himself. It was Friday. How could he have forgotten? On Fridays, his friend, Aelita Stones, snuck down to his dorm at seven to read however much of _The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy_, or some other such science fiction, they could get through. None of their other friends knew of this tradition.

He opened the door and there she was, the beautiful girl in the pink hoody she always wore, a thick, blue book in her hands. Smiling widely, he gestured with his hands for her to come in.

"Please," he said dramatically, "enter, fair lady."

She laughed quietly, stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

"You're to kind," she said, holding up the book and waving it. "I brought it. Do you remember where we left off?"

He thought for a moment. "Yeah, somewhere around 'Ford, you're turning into a penguin, stop it,' right?"

"Yup," she said happily. "Let's see what happens to the survivors of the apocalypse next, shall we?" She opened the book and flipped around until she found the right page, then handed him the book. Noticing the program running on the screen, she added, "You were working on the antivirus."

"Yup. I think I'm really close. I only have a vague understanding how Xana got you tied to him, but think I almost have a program that can tear the bond apart.

"Jeremie," she said with a smile, "just don't overwork yourself."

Aelita Stones was not a real person. She was born and raised in a virtual paradise, a surrealistic realm divided into five sectors.

Last year, in seventh grade, Jeremy had stumbled onto a computer in an abandoned factory. As the school nerd, he had gone there often looking for a quiet place to study. The last thing he expected to find was a super-computer hooked up to three portals to a digital world. This, of course, is exactly what he found or else the story would be very dull.

This computer was gigantic! For a computer, being bigger than a small aircraft is fairly large. It was made up of several monitors and keyboards all hooked up in very purposeful ways. Jeremie felt like he'd died and gone to computer-geek heaven! The difficult part was turning it on, but this proved to be no problem for our young brainiac.

Once he did, he immediately began to wish he hadn't. In a glorious show of lights and sounds, the monitors all switched on.

In the center of the room was a pool of darkness. It was a dish of metal, the walls of which came about three feet out of the ground. This turned out to be a spot for a hologram to appear from several projectors around the side.

A hologram of a planet made of ice, forest, desert and mountain terrain.

One of the monitors showed an elfish girl in a pink, medieval looking outfit.

She explained to Jeremie that her name was Aelita and a great danger to the entire planet approached. A danger named Xana, a computer virus who could bend simple machines to its bidding. It was bent on mass destruction.

Its only weakness was the towers it had to keep active in Lyoko, the virtual paradise, in order to maintain power in the outside world. Only she could de-activate them, and to do that she needed two things.

The first was authorization to mess with the towers, which was mostly paperwork. She literally couldn't affect them without it.

The second was a team to protect her from the monsters that served Xana in the virtual world. They would enter through the scanners located in the floor below.

Jeremie wasted no time assembling such an army. The lyoko gang quickly became great friends, as nothing joins people together quite as strong as fighting side by side.

For almost a year Jeremie worked every day to create a program that would bring Aelita out of Lyoko and into the real world through the scanners. When it was complete, the plan was to bring her straight out and turn the computer back off to destroy Xana once and for all. At the end of the year, he succeeded. Xana, however, had different plans.

It created a virus that would bind Aelita to him. If they destroyed it, they would destroy her. The teams' only hope was for Jeremy to construct an anti-virus to cure her, then finally destroy Xana.

On Lyoko, Aelita was what is known as a blessing elf. Her skills were mainly focused on casting magic, enchanting weapons and wielding weapons that could easily channel mystic energy.

In the real world, she was a normal girl, though slightly more pink than average. She had good grades, nice taste in clothes, a good sense of humor, and four amazing friends, who spent the last year trying to protect and save her.

They were getting close now. With every day that passed, Jeremie was getting more and more work done.

Xana's days were numbered, and it knew this. It couldn't let this happen. If they destroyed it, it would never own the world of reality. But it had surprises in store for the team.

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At that moment, Ulrich Stern and Odd Della Robbia were sitting cross-legged on their beds in their Kadic Academy dorm. Both held a Gameboy Advanced SP in their hands; attached to the back of both were wireless link devices. These allowed them to face each other in Dragonball Z Taiketsu. Both saw that on the screen, a tall muscular man in an orange outfit with a blue shirt underneath was swinging his fist into the stomach of a green demonic character with a long tail.

"No fair," cried Odd. "There's no way to charge that fast! You cheated!"

"Oh, please," said Ulrich calmly. "How am I supposed to cheat at a game like this? You're just a sore looser."

Odd and Ulrich had been best friends form the day Odd moved into Kadic. Though serious when the situation required, they were both very average, normal teenage boys. They liked to stay up late playing videogames, especially against each other, joke with friends, laugh and just have an all around great time.

The major difference in their personalities was how they reacted under pressure. When face with a world-threatening situation, Ulrich evaluated options, got to the point and terminated the problem. Odd too was useful in that he could do what was needed, but he also used his humorous wit to keep the team from going totally insane.

They faced many world-threatening situations. They were also part of the group of Xana-fighting teenagers that did battle on Lyoko.

Odd's Lyokan character was what is known as a psychic neko, a cat person that could see into the near future on occasion. His skills mostly lied in his agility and his two weapons, the purple gloves that shot arrowhead-shaped darts from the wrists. Though his advanced power was not as useful as that of the other three, his basic capabilities in combat more than compensated.

Ulrich, on the other hand, was a speed samurai. His advanced power was the Super Sprint, an ability that allowed him to reach speeds far beyond anything he could do without it. He wore a yellow suit of armor that covered his chest and fell over his legs in strips. Beside the suits' waist hung his saber, a weapon that pulled out easily, did considerable damage and had nice control.

The fifth and final member of the group was Yumi Ishiyama.

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It was eleven at night, but the book Yumi was reading was to good to put down. It was a humorous story about a teenager whose best friend turned out to be an alien catgirl with golden blonde wings and said that they were leaving the planet that afternoon because her cousin had finally gotten a ship and was coming to pick them up.

She was sitting on her bed with the book in front of her; her back leaned against the wall. Suddenly, her thoughts wandered away from the book and turned to Lyoko.

Her character was more of a guardian than the boys' warriors. Her advanced power was telekinesis, which was mostly used to shield herself and others from blasts with large objects. Her weapons were a pair of fans that could be thrown to slice through opponents, but were more useful for blocking lasers that Xanas' monsters shot at her. Her character was a guardian maid.

Her thoughts headed farther down this road until they reached her friends, the other Lyokan defenders. The name was one Odd had thought up, though a strange one.

As soon as they could get cure Aelita's virus, they would have to destroy Lyoko if they wished to get rid of Xana. There was no way to remove ii from the program, and the entire computer would, therefore, have to be shut down for good the moment Aelita was out of harms way. They were more concerned with Earth than Lyoko, considering that there were a few billion people on Earth and only one on Lyoko. That one person was Xana, and they didn't like him that much.

Her thoughts returned to her friends, specifically Ulrich. She loved Ulrich

That, however, is not a major point of this story. The main focus is the events of the next day, and some of their consequences.

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Kaserht. That was all she knew. Her name was Kaserht, and she existed to serve Xana. She was a warrior elf character, which is a fairly rare combo. Most elves are more skilled with casting spells and blessings than hand-to-hand combat, but she was what she was and that was that.

She looked at her surroundings. She was in some kind of forest, but one unlike anything that had ever existed on Earth. It was the Lyokan forest region, filled with towering, thick trees with branches larger enough for a person to hide in.

She then looked down at herself. Her outfit was a brown jumpsuit covered with a green vest and several green sashes over her arms and legs.

In her hand was a black, padded handle. She remembered that this was her equipment, her weapon. It was attached to a string, which could only be as durable as it was in a world like Lyoko. The string went down about a twentieth of its' length, because her hand was grasping the round, wooden device attached to the end. Most versions of her weapon on Earth were made of plastic, but that was a material that required more technology than Lyoko was currently capable of. It was a yo-yo.

A figure stepped out from behind a nearby tree. It was a large, masculine figure, but the exact age and gender were indeterminable, due to the fact that it seemed to be made of a pitch-black smoke that had only begun to condense into a solid form. A voice came from it. That chin and cheeks moved as though a mouth was forming the words, but showed no other sign that it was speaking.

"I have created you Kaserht. Do you understand why?" It asked.

Kaserht shook her head no. It was all she could do.

"You are to help me destroy my enemies. They would have Lyoko be destroyed rather than have me come into power in their realm. For this, they must be punished." Its' voice was definite. There was something there that made her think it was not being totally honest, but she could not allow Lyoko to be destroyed.

She nodded, pledging to aid this creature. The story was not unbelievable. She had seen the world be erased before, but, knowing only her name, she did not know how.

"Good," it said. "I have command over races of creatures that can assist you in meeting our goal." It stuck its hand into the air and pulled. A hole opened in the empty space, through which she could see a blue area of large, rectangular surfaces and pillars. "Destroy twenty of the creatures you find inside for today's training. Fail, and you will be punished."

She didn't like the way it spoke, but something made her feel that she had to protect her home. It was most likely her sense of duty that caused her to step forward, jump through the hole and throw her weapon at the first thing she saw, a large, metallic crab with no eyes, a flat surface and only four legs. The word "krabe" popped into her mind, and she knew this to be the monsters name.

On its back was a black symbol. It was a single dot inside two circles made of thick lines. Another line stuck out of the top, and three from the bottom in a shape resembling an "m." This she knew to be the Eye of Xana.

Her yo-yo struck the symbol and the creature shattered, dieing in much the same way one would expect a virtual monster to die.

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Xana swung its leg into Kaserhts' side, throwing her backwards into the black landscape. All that was around them was darkness. The ground was flat and smooth, and there was nothing to block their view of the terrain. There was no light, but neither of them had any trouble seeing. There was simply nothing to see.

"You failed!" it cried out in rage. She didn't really. It was simply bad luck that prevented her from filling her quota. She had slain nineteen monsters, before one shot her in the back and her life-points had been drained. She was sent straight to the judgment field, but only Xana was there. There was no one to judge her and decide what should happen to her next, whether she should be allowed another life or sent to oblivion and replaced with a new consciousness. She was grateful for this, having no idea if she would be worthy. The scales and coins were thrown to the ground, having been thrown at her rather than used to weigh the worth of her previous life.

"A simple task it was, and you allowed yourself to be slain rather than finish it! I am sickened to have an apprentice like you!" If she could have spoken, she would have explained that it was an accident.

Instead, she buckled over in pain and clenched her stomach. She felt like she had been run over by a train, soreness rushing through her body. Lyoko being the virtual world it was, those present had no sense of touch. There was, however, a sensation of pressure that could alert Lyokans that they were touching something. She was feeling quite a lot of that sensation, and it was not a pleasant one.

A short while later, which seemed like forever, she noticed that the beating had stopped. There was still much leftover pain, but nothing was being added. She hazarded a glance up. Xana was standing over her, its face tilted as though it were looking at her.

"Stand," he said. "We shall study our foes that we may be prepared for their next attack." She stood, though her body gave a shriek of torture. Xana led her to a spot just like the rest of them. A screen appeared out of nowhere. They stood and watched as a video began playing. It began with four warriors on Lyoko, fighting Xanas' monsters.

Kaserht noted that the warriors did not appear as though they were trying to destroy anything. Instead, the fought like a team of defenders. Their fighting style was not harsh or merciless, no, it was that of a group who would rather be playing a game.

The thought that Xana was lying to her approached her mind, and she regarded it as a distinct possibility.

The video ended.

"I leave you to heal," said Xana, and disappeared as though a wind had blown away its' gaseous form.

She approached the screen and ran her hand over the space in front of it. A keyboard appeared in that space. If she had understood the video correctly, the easiest one to contact would be "Jeremie".


	2. Why is Odd acting odd?

Saturday. In Odds' opinion, any day without school was a good day, and any day without school at the mall in the food court with four of his closest friends was a great day. The five members of the Lyoko team had decided a few days before to gather there, simply because every minute not wasted was a wasted minute.

Odds' watch read twelve o' clock, so he decided it was lunchtime.

"Who's up for Taco Bell?" he asked.

Ulrich groaned.

"They've served tacos at the school for the last three days," Ulrich argued. "We gotta' have something else."

"Yeah," said Yumi, "how about some Pizza?"

"Ooh," Odd replied. "That sounds good. Hey, Einstein!"

Jeremies gaze moved from his sleek, black, laptop computer to Odd.

"Huh?"

"Pizza for lunch?"

"No time. Factory." There was an air of complete and total distraction in his voice, but Odd tried anyway.

"What's up? Xana got a tower?" he asked pointlessly.

Jeremy stood up, picked up his computer and walked towards the exit. The other four stood and followed him, shrugging off the sense of clueless ness that had suddenly invaded their normally well-informed lives.

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Saturday. In Jeremies opinion, any day without school was a boring, uneventful day. Any day without event spent with his friends, however, was an exciting and fulfilling day.

The best thing about the mall that he and his friends loved so much was, Jeremie thought, the free Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is an abbreviation for Wireless Fidelity, which is what a non-connected computer uses to get on-line. It has to have Wi-Fi compatibility, of course, but all the annoying wires and other things that really suck were gone and unnecessary.

He and his friends were sitting arround a table, discussing something that he wasn't listening to. A few moments ago, he had been working on the anti-virus program mentioned earlier. At this point, however, he was in a chat window that had suddenly popped up with someone whose screen name was Kaserht.

"I have decided to question you," her message said. "Xana claims you desire to destroy Lyoko. Is this true?"

Jeremie stopped what he was doing. He peered over the top of his screen to see if any of his friends had noticed. They hadn't. He thought for a moment about telling them, but thought better of it. It would be best, for the time being, not to alarm them unnecessarily. There were one or two flaws in this argument, but the decided to ignore them.

"Tell me what you know about Lyoko," he replied.

"I can not give out information without endangering myself and my world. Is the above statement true?"

Jeremie thought for moment before making his reply. He didn't want to reveal to much either.

"For the time being, we can not. Our friend is tied to Xana, and destroying him would destroy her."

"You value friendship?" To Jeremie, it seamed a strange question to ask, but a relevant and legitimate one. He would have no problem answering truthfully.

"Yes," he replied.

"What else do you value?" Their morals seemed a strange thing to question, but he could see the cause. No he couldn't, but there seemed to be one. It was obviously leading somewhere. Before he could reply, another message was there. It said,

"Your team, that is, not you as an individual." He could see the reason for clarification, and nodded for absolutely no reason considering that he could not be seen by whomever he was chatting with. He had to stop and think again. What exactly did they value? What were they fighting for?

"We value life, our own and that of others, friendship, peace and normal, human values and… stuff… Yeah." He lost himself near the end, but got his point across.

"Do you not believe that the Lyokans, flawed as they may be, have the same rights and values?" This time, Kaserht lost him. He had no idea what she was talking about. If there were some kind of race living in Lyoko, things would be infinitely more complicated.

"?" He replied. It was all he needed to say to signify clueless ness.

"You do not know of them?"

"Of course not! We would not destroy an entire civilization! Where have they been? There's no way we wouldn't have noticed an entire species living on Lyoko!"

"Not a species," came the reply. "Several. Come to Lyoko now, I will show them to you."

"Hey, Einstein!"

Jeremies gaze moved from his sleek, black, laptop computer to Odd.

"Huh?"

"Pizza for lunch?"

"No time. Factory."

"What's up?" asked Odd. "Xana got a tower?"

Jeremy stood up, picked up his computer and walked towards the exit. The other four stood and followed him, shrugging off the sense of clueless ness that had suddenly invaded their normally well-informed lives.

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Kaserht couldn't believe how long it had taken her to track down a way to reach Jeremie. She had researched clues, written programs, pressed forward, looked back, seen easier ways to get to where she was that she should have seen earlier, scolded her self and pressed forward even more. Finally, she found him. He was online at the moment, so she proceeded immediately into the next part of her work. She decided that her screen name would be her real name, because it was not identifiable on Earth.

"I have decided to question you," her message said. "Xana claims you desire to destroy Lyoko. Is this true?" His reply came a few moments later.

"Tell me what you know about Lyoko," he requested. She had already decided that she would not tell them anything that they could use, as she was still trying to discover who was "right" and where her loyalties actually lay. She would defend her homeland at all costs, but had to find out how best to do that. This meant finding out who was on her side. Xana, something told her, was not one to trust.

"I can not give out information without endangering myself and my world. Is the above statement true?" This, to her, seemed safe enough to say. His reply took some time to come. Obviously, he was also trying to decide how much information was safe.

"For the time being, we can not. Our friend is tied to Xana, and destroying him would destroy her." "Friend" was not a word she had not thought of a group of destroyers using.

"You value friendship?" she asked in considerable surprise. Apparently she caught him by surprise as well, because this response also was delayed.

"Yes."

"What else do you value?" This, she felt, was exactly what she needed to know. Who were these people, where did their morals lie? The reply to this took the longest to come of any of them. It obviously wasn't the sort of thing people thought about often. This gave her time to refine her question.

"Your team, that is, not you as an individual."

"We value life, our own and that of others, friendship, good times, peace and normal, human values and… stuff… Yeah." Near the end, he was obviously very lost as to what he was talking about, but she understood enough to go on.

"Do you not believe that the Lyokans, flawed as they may be, have the same rights and values?" She knew that several of the Lyokan values were a bit off, but this was the main idea of their culture.

The only reply he sent was a question mark. If they didn't know about the Lyokans, she realized with a sudden burst of insight, Lyoko would seem to be a place with no significant purpose, and there would therefore be no problem with them in destroying it for good.

"You do not know of them?" she asked. Everything would be explained. Everything would make sense. Not everything, but a whole heck of a lot.

"Of course not!" came his reply. "We would not destroy an entire civilization! Where have they been? There's no way we wouldn't have noticed an entire species living on Lyoko!" She would have laughed if she could. "An entire species" was a major understatement. The dragons, the wolfmen, the merfolk, the elves, samurai, goblins and dozens of other civilizations came to mind.

"Not a species," she responded. "Several. Come to Lyoko now, I will show them to you." She logged out before he could question her further. She could tell that he was honestly shocked at the news. Xanas' video had covered how they entered her world, as well as giving her sufficient knowledge on several other subjects.

The only thing left to do would be to enter a tower and wait. She didn't have authority to use one yet, but she could enter and communicate with them at least.

She looked beyond the screen and saw a huge, white pillar with a base like the trunk of a tree. It might have been a tree with the branches and bark stripped off, but it was to straight and to wide. It was the only tower in the judgment field, a way tower that only the worthy of continuing could enter. There was no one to judge her now, but if she were to save Lyoko she would have to break a single rule and request forgiveness later. She doubted it be given to her, a flaw without value, but it mattered little. She dashed towards the tower, preparing for contact.

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Odd dashed through the forest as he had done several times before, his friends beside him. He was anxious for the thrill of a Lyoko battle; his blood pumped through his body, carrying adrenaline.

He was the first one to the manhole cover that hid the teams' vehicles from sight. He picked it up, shoved it aside, and jumped down the hole, almost unable to grab a rung of the ladder on the way down. He cursed his stupidity.

"Grab the ladder, then go down the hole," he muttered to himself. He grabbed his skateboard and dashed down the path of cement that lined the sides of the sewer. The skateboard hit the ground and he jumped on it, pushed forward by the momentum. The other four were down soon, but he was already halfway there.

"He could wait up for us," muttered Jeremie as he pushed himself forward on his scooter. He wasn't particularly angry at Odd, but it was, annoying that he had to get to the factory first, even though he couldn't get on Lyoko without Jeremie, and couldn't do anything once he was there without Aelita.

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Once in the computer room, Jeremie sat down in one of the seats and began to run through the virtualization procedure. His fingers had to move quickly to keep up with the process of what was being stored and what programs needed to be run. There was a lot more to do than some people might think, because the system wasn't as automated as it appeared. One day, he thought, he would write a program that would run the system through the process so he could use that time to do more important things. Figuring out what Xana was up to each time came to mind, though it didn't appear to be active at the moment.

"Time to be virtualized," he said into the headset that connected him with both the Lyoko and the part of the factory he was currently addressing, the scanner room. "Ladies first." Two of the scanners were indicated on the screen as full. The cameras inside them confirmed this, so there was really no reason to have the scanners, but the programmers had put them in anyway. "Transfer, Yumi. Transfer, Aelita. Scanner, Yumi. Scanner, Aelita. Virtualization." He saw the light move up and down the girls, saw them rise up in the air, saw the wind blow upwards on them, saw them disappear suddenly. Next, he went through the same process with Ulrich and Odd.

A message popped up on the bottom of the screen.

"I will be in the forest region, next to the way tower," it said. "Tell them this." He repeated the message to his friends.

"So," asked Ulrich, "who exactly are we looking for?"

Jeremy explained what had happened in the mall, briefly summarizing the entire chat. When he was done, there was silence from his friends until Odd broke it.

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The four Lyokan warriors were dashing through the tall, spiraling trees of the forest region, towards the tower. It was not a great way off, so Jeremie had not bothered to load the teams' vehicles, the motorized devices they used to coast around the Lyokan plain.

"Lyokan people?" Odd said to Aelita in considerable astonishment. "Why didn't you tell us?" Trying to talk and run at the same time would have been a strain on his body in the real world, but there was neither air, nor need of it on Lyoko.

"I thought they were gone," she replied. "By all logic, they should be."

"Where could they have been?" said Yumi. "There's no way we could've just walked past them every time we came to Lyoko."

"That's what I thought," said Aelita. "They were deleted before the computer was shut down to destroy Xana. They shouldn't still exist."

"What happened?" asked Yumi. Ulrich dashed on beside them, listening intently. He had made a bit of a habit out of listening to the answers to other peoples' questions rather than asking his own, unless the need arose.

"They were deleted from the computer. It should have been complete; I only survived by hiding in a tower. It's a sacrilege I still fill guilty of; I can't imagine anyone else doing it," Aelita replied sadly. The team silently decided not to press for any more information. They would find out all they needed when the found whoever it was they were looking for.

As Odd ran, he began to pick up speed. He didn't know why, but he suddenly felt anxious to meet this mysterious person. He felt as though waiting any longer would drive him mad, though this was not a new sensation by any means. He had always been a rather impatient person. This is why the news carried by Jeremies voice, which came to Lyoko through the headset he was wearing, was so annoying to him.

"Three krabes, five swarms of hornets and a tarantula headed your way, guys. Apparently, Xana doesn't want you getting any farther. Our friend by the way tower seems to be having trouble as well."

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Kaserht had let her guard down for a few moments, and already she was standing five meters from three krabes and a swarm of hornets. She frowned. Certainly Xana knew her better than to think she couldn't handle this.

Hornets are large, wasp like creatures that always travel in sets of three, and always in a three-point formation. If the leader dies, the other two go as well. Instead of stingers, they have laser weapons. They are about three feet long, and approximately eight inches in radius.

She saw the red blast of light come at her as one of the hornets fired. She dodged, but found that her position made her any easy target for one of the krabes. It fired at her, and she jumped into the trees above. She threw her yo-yo down at one of the krabes, striking the Eye of Xana on its back. It shattered, expelling some force as it went. She tugged the string and her yo-yo came back, landing safely in her hand.

The hornets fired again, each of their stingers shooting a blast. Kaserht jumped one branch higher and shot her weapon at the leader, missed, and hit one of the followers, which died. She silently scolded herself. It wasn't that hard a shot, and mostly the creatures only moved to re-aim. She would have to practice her aim.

A krabe on the ground tilted up and shot another blast at her. She jumped out of the tree and landed on its back. From there, she had the perfect shot at the other one. She took it, and it hit beautifuly. She stomped on the symbol on the krabe she was standing on and it shattered.

She jumped to the side as she felt the air behind her warm with electric energy. The hornets had fired at her now that their comrade was gone, missing by an inch of two. She shot her weapon at the leader and struck it, bringing down both of them.

With the battle over, she sat down with her back against the tower and waited for the Lyokan defenders.

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Ulrich dashed forward, struck his sword into a krabe, destroying it, and jumped up to strike one of the leading hornets. Three swarms shot at him, but the nine blasts were easy for someone with his powers of speed to avoid. He was about to strike the hornet he had been aiming for, but one of Odd's laser arrows struck it. He looked back just in time to see Odd shoot a krabe.

The usual look of playful glee on Odd's face was gone, replaced by a look of determined impatience. It seemed as though Lyoko was beginning to bore him, but Ulrich new that this was not the case.

"Odd, watch out!" Cried Yumi. Odd looked to his left to see that the tarantula was firing at him. Tarantula are about six feet tall, have four legs that make up most of their height, the front two of which end in cannons, and long, tube-like bodies. They are a dull, light tan color, and are without a doubt the strongest creatures on Lyoko. The lean onto their front knees and point the cannons at whatever they wish to destroy.

Odd jumped to the side with his cat-like agility, grabbed onto a tree branch with one hand and shot the tarantula with the other. The blast hit its mark dead on, but tarantulas have huge amounts of hit-points. He shot another blast, which broke the ledge it was standing on and sent it tumbling into the digital sea.

The digital sea is not made of actual--or virtual--water. It is simply an empty space below the Lyokan land that instantly slays monsters and holds characters captive forever.

With the tarantula so easily destroyed, it would be a simple matter to finish the battle. He shot another arrow at a hornet leader and one at a krabe, both of which struck dead on.

The fight was nearly finished, but Odd could wait no longer. He ran on, leaving the last few monsters for Ulrich and Yumi. He had done most of the work so far, and they could handle the rest.

"Where's that idiot going?" Yumi called as Odd ran off and she threw one of her fans at a hornet.

Odd ran forward, feeling that whatever he was seeking was far more important than whatever Yumi or Jeremie had to say.

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Jeremie looked at the screen with interest as the four green triangles that represented his friends separated. Odd was running away. No, that wouldn't be correct. Odd was by no means a coward, as that statement would imply. Odd was running to the final destination.

(That's strange,) he thought. (Odd may be the only one who enjoys the experience on Lyoko. Why is he trying to get it over with?)

"Odd," he said, "what are you doing?" The reply took a while to arrive. Jeremie guessed, correctly as it turns out, that Odd was debating whether or not he should reply.

"I don't know," came the reply a short while later. "I just feel like I really want to meet whoever it is we're here to meet. Something about her just draws me on. I don't know why."

"I think you should stick around for the rest of the fight. You kind of left in the middle," Jeremie said because he felt he should. (That's strange,) Jeremie thought. (How would Odd know if Kaserht's female?)

"Hey, I killed two krabes, six hornets and a tarantula. I've done plenty."

"It's not about doing your share, Odd. It's about the battle being done."

"Don't worry! The others can handle it." Jeremie decided that he couldn't convince Odd when his mind was made up. That was the groups' major weakness, that they were all closed-minded. He gave up and focused his attention back on the battle.

"Odd wouldn't come back," he told Yumi. The team had killed two more swarms of hornets, leaving one swarm and a krabe.

"It's okay," she told him. "The situation here's pretty much under control." These words were the last she said before the krabe shot her and she de-virtualized.


	3. The fatal flaw

Yumi opened her eyes in the yellow, circular walls of the scanner she had used. The door swung open automatically, revealing the other two scanners. The scanners were three yellow cylinders slightly taller than the average person, because the average person was exactly who they had been built for. She stepped out, swore, and dashed to the elevator that the team used to move between the floors of the factory.

She pressed the button to bring her to the computer room and felt the rectangular room lurch upwards.

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Odd arrived at the tower panting and sweating. He had run faster than he thought he could, without even knowing why. It wasn't as if there was a prize for the first one there.

(Why,) he thought, (Didn't I stay at the battle?) He saw the girl sitting with her back against the tower, and felt as if his question had been answered. It hadn't, but it was as close as he would get.

She wasn't particularly beautiful, but she was quite a pleasant sight. Her outfit was a brown jumpsuit covered with a green vest and several green sashes over her arms and legs. Her skin was smooth and her hair was golden and soft. In her hand was a green, wooden yo-yo attached to a soft, black handle instead of a finger-wrapping piece of string.

She looked straight at him, as silent as he was. He stood there, just looking at her for a few moments. He felt privileged to be near this girl. He was amazed at her beauty, even though she was little more than average-looking. Something about her was more beautiful than she looked, some kind of innocence, chastity, love.

"You are the one named Odd, are you not?" he heard, but she didn't say. He thought for a moment to ask how she did this, but decided against it.

"Yes," he said. "You were going to show us some sort of people living on Lyoko?"

She nodded and walked into the tower, beckoning with her hand for him to follow her. He walked in to see her typing away at a holographic keyboard in the middle of the air.

The inside of the tower was blue. There was a white platform in the shape of The Eye of Xana. Once one stood on the center of the eye, one would rise up and land on a smaller platform in the shape of a circle. It was this higher platform on which they stood.

"What are you doing?" he asked. She remained silent and continued to type. He decided to stand back and wait, but he didn't have to for long.

"Lyoko historical archives accessed," said a female voice that came from every direction at once. In a moment, Odd found that he was no longer in a tower, but in the computer room. He was staring at a screen, feeling very confused. Jeremie was nowhere to be seen.

The holographic map was different, less detailed and more like something a physicist would dream up than a game designer. The land was more like land one could find on Earth, and had less exciting obstacles than true-to-life terrain.

Odd frowned.

(What's going on?) he thought. The voice spoke again.

"Era one," it said. "No population, scanners unfinished, Lyoko hanging in existence by threads." The hologram began to rotate faster, as though some one had pressed fast forward. When it stopped, the landscape was a bit more detailed, with several features that seemed more fun than the last version.

"Era two. No population, scanner finished but Lyoko not real enough to enter." The rotation sped up again, and when it stopped the landscape looked much the same as when Odd saw it last.

"Era three. Population is thirty humans. Scanners finished, Lyoko can be entered." Odd was beginning to think that something didn't quite make sense. That made him feel even dumber than he had a second ago, because nothing that was happening made sense.

"Era four," the voice said before Odd had fully noticed that Lyoko had once again fast-forwarded. This time, the present-day Lyoko was mostly accounted for, except that the land was covered with all kinds of primitive housing, such as lodges and teepees. "Population is three hundred human, two hundred dragons, two hundred and fifty werewolves, two hundred cat folk, one hundred and seventy elves…" the voice went on to list several other kinds of mystical creatures that had lived in Lyoko. "Scanners working, Lyoko entered daily." Lyoko sped to the next era.

"Era five, final era," said the voice. "Xana active, population full, Xana has become destructive, unable to remove Xana from program, population destroyed, Lyoko shut down." Odd stared at the blackness. The hologram was gone.

Questions shot through Odds mind like bullets. What had happened? What was Xana supposed to have done? What did it do? And most importantly of all, how could it have ended so suddenly? Wouldn't somebody have noticed before Xana got all that power?

And then he was back in the tower, looking at the girl in the brown jumpsuit.

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Ulrich arrived at the clearing, to see Odd, firing questions at a girl in a brown jumpsuit covered in a green vest and sashes. He had left Aelita behind after making sure there were no monsters about. A stupid move, he knew, but there was little to worry about. He didn't know why this was true, but he had a very strong feeling it was.

"How did it happen? Who created this place? Why didn't they stop him? Where are these people now? The files said they were destroyed! They can't still exist, can they? What's going on?" The girls' lips moved, but no sound came out. Fortunately, Ulrich could read lips.

"She says she's mute," Ulrich said, making his presence known. "She can't talk. She also says she used telepathy earlier, but doesn't have the energy to now." Odd let out a sigh of annoyance.

"This complicates thing," he said. He looked back at her to see that her eyes were cast to the ground in shame. Neither boy knew this, and Aelita was to far behind to tell them, but the disabled where highly oppressed in Lyokan culture. After all, it was a perfect place. Why should imperfect beings exist there?

"You okay?" Odd asked. She looked back at him, put a fake smile in her eyes and nodded. There was no reason to concern any non-Lyokans, the race that had created the computer, designed the people, checked the physics involved and done all the other stuff that must be done to create an artificial world; the Lyokans should be grateful to them that they even existed.

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"What is it?" Yumi asked Jeremie as he stared at the screen in intense determination.

"Xana attacked us on Lyoko, right?" he said. When Yumi nodded, he continued. "That means he must have a tower activated somewhere, but the super-scan's drawing a blank. There's nothing." Yumi stared at the screen as well, but couldn't make sense of any of it.

"Yeah," she said. "That's pretty weird." She scolded herself. Of all the things she could've said, she had said that. Couldn't she come up with something smart or helpful?

Jeremie didn't notice, however. He was to busy typing away and trying to figure out what had happened.

"It doesn't appear," he said finally, "that we'll see any more monsters any time soon." He sighed. "Still, I wish one of the guys had stayed with Aelita. It doesn't feel safe." Yumi nodded. Lyoko wasn't a very safe place that often.

Jeremie spoke into the microphone.

"All right," he said. "Everybody, get to a tower and I'll de-virtualize you." A few moments later, he began running the program that would bring the team back to the real world through the scanners. After it finished, he had to run it again for Aelita, who had reached the tower soon after.

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In the judgment field, Xana curled its lips into a dark smile. This had to be its best plan ever. The group opposing it had one fatal flaw, one serious error in judgment that would lead to their downfall. This was the definition of a tragic hero, a character who had great power and respect alongside one fatal flaw. These characters had plenty of flaws, and all of them it could manipulate.

The one he was focusing on at the moment, however, was a simple, human one. This merely proves the chroniclers irrelevant theories that people suck, but that is not important here. What is important is that flaw.

Trust. There was one in that group that should not have been trusted, but was welcomed gladly by the others. Xana was going to cash in big on that mistake, not that it used the phrase "cash in" often.

Yes, Xana felt it had truly won. It knew that its latest plan was totally flawless. Failure was not an option. The stress would quite literally be murder on his poor, young foes' minds.

It tilted its head back and laughed a dark, evil laugh. It had finally won!

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Aelita stepped out of the scanner, slightly annoyed that Ulrich had ran off. Still, she wasn't going to let it ruin her day or her good mood. The door swung open and she saw Odd, Ulrich and a girl who was apparently the one they had come looking for.

The girl was dressed in an out fit of clothing that I cannot describe, because I know very little about clothes. I can, however, tell you that the bottom was brown and the top was green, which was apparently designed to give the impression that she was a tree.

"Hi," said Aelita. "What's up?" In a few seconds, her good mood would be ruined. She would become totally enraged, and the greatest tragedy to strike the Lyoko gang would be revealed.

"The new girl can't talk," said Ulrich. "We're trying to work out a way to communicate."

Aelita stepped forward, an angry look in her eyes. Odd and Ulrich stared at her in surprise. She walked over to the girl they had recently met, and kicked her hard in the stomach. The girl fell to her knees, clutching her stomach. Aelita grabbed her by the collar and jerked her back up.

"Not only did you defile a tower," she whispered, her voice quivering with rage, "but you saved yourself, an abomination that shouldn't exist, while the worthy were slain!"

As though coming out of a trance, Odd and Ulrich realized what was going on. They grabbed Aelitas' arms and put them behind her back before she could do any more damage. She dropped the girl, who fell to the ground and began massaging her neck with one hand and clutched her stomach with the other.

Pain on Earth was a lot worse than on Lyoko. She was not getting off to a good start.

"Aelita!" Odd cried, truly concerned. "What are you doing?" Neither boy had ever expected her to act like this. She was usually happy and concerned for others; she was never one to start a fight. Her response was so simple; it sent chills though Odds' body.

"Lyoko is meant to be a paradise. It isn't supposed to have flaws, or even flawed people. They are simply flaws in the program, bugs in the design.' Odds' terrified expression met Ulrichs', one of anger.

"C'mon," said Ulrich, letting go of Aelitas' arm. "Let's go to the computer room."

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Jeremie sat back in the chair.

(Time to "interrogate" the "prisoner,") he though.

The elevator door opened, and the four teenagers stepped out. Jeremie noted that the look of perky happiness that usually covered Aelitas face was gone. Now, it was replaced with pure resentment. Odds' expression was one of sorrow, Ulrichs' of undirected anger, and the girl Jeremie quite naturally assumed to be Kaserht looked ashamed, with a bit of physical pain mixed in.

"What happened?" he asked. Odds' gaze met his. He shuddered. "Guys?"

Yumi looked worried. She walked over to Ulrich and looked into his eyes.

"Answer him," she said in a soft, concerned tone. Ulrich muttered something that sounded sulky. She asked him to repeat it.

"Ask Odd. I don't wanna' talk about it." he said. Yumi let out a sigh of annoyance at his anger, but knew that with Ulrich, the third inevitable thing in life was mood swings.

"Odd," said Jeremie in a way that was more of a question than anything else. Odd nodded.

"When Aelita found out the girl we found on lyoko was mute, she kicked her. Hard." Jeremie looked at Kaserht. She certainly seamed to have been hurt. He didn't want to believe it, but Odd wasn't the type to lie about something like that.

"Aelita," he said, trying to keep his disposition neutral, "Explain yourself."

"Lyoko is designed to be a perfect place," she said. "The people are not supposed to be flawed. No disabilities, no deformations, no autism, no mental illness. This is how my culture evolved. Wrong or right, it's how I think."

"I can assure you, it is very wrong," said Jeremy, still not showing the emotional storm inside him. "It's a way you are born, not a punishment, an element of luck and chance. You do not have the right to hurt anyone, not matter what you think of them."

The intensity in the air grew. Before Aelita could think about what she was doing, she had stormed back into the elevator.

Jeremie watched the screen that showed where the elevator went. It headed up a floor to the exit. Aelita had left. Tears came to his eyes, but he brushed them away. There was business to attend to, information to gather.


End file.
